


I Need to Know Where the Headlights Can Take Me

by metaphasia



Category: Fast and the Furious Series
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 20:18:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7375963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metaphasia/pseuds/metaphasia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somewhere between Los Angeles and Miami, there's a bar.  Sometime between Los Angeles and Miami, there's a road not taken.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Need to Know Where the Headlights Can Take Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arysteia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arysteia/gifts).



Dom doesn't see people the same way that other people do. He didn't notice it at first, since it was always how he saw the world; it wasn't until he started to get older that he figured out that other people were not seeing the same things he was. When Dom looked at someone, he focused on their personality somehow. It's not that he has some sort of magical powers or anything; he's not superstitious enough to think that. It's simply that he doesn't focus on the same things that everyone else does, so he sees people in a different light. Where other people looked at people's appearances, Dom looked at their actions and body language, and saw their personality on some instinctive level.  
That ability to read other people had served him well, helping him gain a large group of loyal friends and followers. It had also helped him escape trouble with the law, by letting him identify three separate police officers who had approached him throughout the years. However, when Brian walked into his life that first night, his "superpower" had somehow let him down. Dom hadn't pegged Brian for any sort of undercover agent at all.  
That had been a big part of why Dom had felt so betrayed when Brian had revealed that he was a cop; Dom had trusted him. On every level that had mattered, Dom had believed that Brian was who he had said he was, that he was on his side.

After the crash, Dom had had to make a choice about where to go. While he knew Los Angeles and the rest of southern California, once you got past the desert, he knew very little about the rest of the United States. Which left him only one choice; to head south, into Mexico. Not only was he at least familiar with the area, but it would give him a chance to lay low while the heat from the died down.

\---

Although the interrogation didn't officially start until two days after the drive by, the questions about how Dominic escaped began the minute that Brian got back to the station. Luckily, there were no cameras on the quarter mile, and no eye witnesses had seen anything clearly, so all he had to do was stick to his story, and the police had no way to charge him with anything. Regardless, there were enough open questions and grey areas in the investigation, that the captain decided to stick him with a desk job until he retired or quit. Brian managed to last a full six months before it ground him down. Long enough to prove some kind of point, whether to himself or the other cops on the force, but eventually, he couldn't take it anymore and left his shield on the captain's desk one day before walking out.

Brian wasn't quite sure what to do with himself after that; there weren't many things he was good at, and racing cars, and fighting comprised his two main skill sets. With that education, it meant that he could either be on the right side of the law, helping to enforce it, or on the wrong side. But even with the FBI and LAPD blackballing him, his moral compass still refused to let him go too far down the other road. So, he found himself drifting from car race to car race, gradually heading eastward.

\---

Dom had been in Mexico long enough that homesickeness had begun to set in. And while he couldn't head back to LA, not without being noticed and picked up immediately, he decided it was safe enough to head to the southeast, since it was far enough away that he wasn't likely to be high enough on anyone's priority list to be noticed.

He had been wandering up and down the east coast for a month or so when he spotted the restaurant. It was a cheap looking Mexican cantina themed place, and he wasn't sure what about it drew him in - it might have been the Nissan Skyline in the parking lot that actually looked well cared for, or that the trashy decorations and Mexican food reminded him of home now more than the actual United States did.

He went up to the bar first and ordered a Corona, before looking around the restaurant. Long habit had him scoping out the place for any cops or potential exits. His eyes roamed over the rest of the restaurant, and he was shocked to see a familiar face at a table in one of the back corners. Dom picked up his beer and walked over to the booth.  
"Of all the shitty Mexican joints in all the world," Brian said, as he slid in opposite him.

"Well," Dom said, after a moment. He had never been much of a talker, but he wasn't really sure what to say to the guy that you trusted more than you would a brother after what the two of them had been through. "I figured I had to give you another chance to owe me a ten second car," he finally finished.

Brian snorted. "Thanks for the offer, but I'm still paying off the last one I gave you," he retorted. "What do you think I'm doing all the way out here?"

Dom quickly blanked his face to cover up the surprise that he was sure had to be showing. "You mean you're not here working for your ... friends?"

"No Dom, the FBI doesn't take it too kindly when you let one of their most wanted get away. Even if it was due to 'unavoidable circumstances'," Brian said, and air quoted the last two words. "The LAPD gave me a choice of sitting behind a desk for forty years or leaving. So I left."

Dom winced. It had been a lot easier to maintain his anger at Brian before he had run into him today. Thinking that he had come off their last exchange better had let him hate O'Conner, but seeing that the events in LA had ruined his life just as much drove home the parallels between their situations. But maybe that was what he needed; to see that he had been right all along about Brian, that he was the person that Dom had thought he was when they first met, that he had been as affected by meeting Dom as Dom was by meeting him.

"So, you leave for anywhere in particular?" Dom asked, trying to extend an olive branch.

"No place in particular," Brian responded. "Just seeing where the roads take me. Mostly to a lot of small budget races, it turns out."

"That doesn't sound like the worst place to go to me," Dom said, his eyebrow raised. "Sounds a lot like where we met to me."

"Yeah, but these races didn't have you at them," Brian quipped. "That made that one a lot more fun."

"Then let's get out of here," Dom said, and watched Brian smile. He chugged the last of his beer down and pulled out his wallet. "And we can find something more our speed."


End file.
